Scientists Have Created A New Kind Of Ice
Scientists are always doing all kinds of interesting tests, and the latest has led to them creating a new type of ice.
A group of physicists from the University of Nevada in Las Vegas was conducting a study where they put ordinary water ice under high amounts of pressure and melted it before refreezing it. This allowed them to observe a quantum transitional phase that was previously undiscovered called Ice-VIIt.
This new kind of ice wouldn’t be found naturally on Earth’s surface, but it could be present in the mantles of other planets. The findings of the study were published in Physical Review B.
The substance doesn’t have a cubic structure like the ice that forms before it. Instead, it has a tetragonal structure, which explains the name Ice-VIIt. It’s apparently similar enough to Ice-VII that it retains the name, but it adds the t at the end to note the structure of the ice.
Natural water ice, for perspective, forms with a hexagonal structure. In an email to Gizmodo, lead author of the study Zachary Grande noted that the significance of the finding is that the scientists studying ice have always asserted that cubic Ice-VII is the primary high-pressure phase, but now these more accurate readings paint a more precise picture.
The process to achieve the transitional phase of this substance is fairly interesting. The team used a diamond anvil cell, which presses the water molecules between two diamonds, creating incredibly high levels of pressure.
Under these conditions, the team froze the molecules, used a laser to briefly melt them, and then allowed the ice to freeze again, where the transitional Ice-VIIt was observed. The conditions they created in the test were similar to pressures that you might find at the center of the Earth.
Ice-VIIt also has an incredibly high melting point, requiring temperatures up to 1,340° F to liquify. Though these levels of pressure might seem extreme to those of us who aren’t studying sub-surface ice reactions on a daily basis, the study actually revealed that this type of transition occurs at a much lower pressure than scientists initially suspected.
Ice-VIIt will eventually transition to Ice-X but at one-third the pressure that was previously assumed necessary.
Discovering the transition could hold interesting applications for the future, but the pressure findings may have even more implications in interplanetary studies in the near future. Grande further explained the significance of the findings, saying that recently discovered exoplanets may need to be re-evaluated in the wake of the study.
These planets may have more significant water supplies than initially thought since the findings reveal that this water won’t compress. This could also mean that the actual size of the planets may be bigger than what was initially observed.
These findings reveal more than we may think. When these ice phases and transitions are observed with such precision, they can have implications and applications in both the near future and in scientific endeavors further down the line. It will be interesting to see what else comes from these studies and observations.
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VOWG
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Ice nine???
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Jerry Krause
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Hi VOWG,
“The conditions they created in the test were similar to pressures that you might find at the center of the Earth.”
I have long questioned this somewhat common statement. Gravity is a vector force. So at the center of mass, assuming an homogeneous Earth, shouldn’t these vectors sum to zero???
Little Pressure. My evidence for my answer is “We saw almost every few feet or at least every dozen feet, one of these almost translucent crustaceans of a few inches long that would scoot around all over the bottom to make a meager existence out of the tiny amount of organic matter that makes it down there for food.” (https://principia-scientific.com/astronaut-explorer-sets-record-dive-to-deepest-point-on-earth/)
Have a good day, Jerry
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Jerry Krause
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Hi VOWG,
I have to correct what I just wrote. The dive which the astronaut-explorer took got no where near the center of the Earth, so it is no evidence of what the pressure is at the Earth’s center of mass. So I have to ponder a bit to explain how the crustaceans survive the pressure of the water over them. A clue seems to be “tiny amount of organic matter that makes it down there for food.” A better clue might be I read “It’s really common to decorate [and dive down with] styrofoam cups to show how they get compressed [by the pressure] in the depths ” We know that styrofoam is a material with trapped air which is squeezed out by the water pressure. We have lungs which contains ‘trapped’ (so to say) and we know we could not survive having our lungs collapsed by the water pressure. And we know that organisms that live continuously under water do not have lungs. So I assume that crustaceans have an organ, similar to fish ,which allow they to obtain dissolved oxygen from the water. And I assume any ’empty spaces in the crustaceans’ tissues are filled with water, not air. But we know the diving sphere with thick alloyed metal skin is filled with air at near the atmospheric pressure at the surface.
So VOWG, have I corrected my mistake to your satisfaction, as I admit that a water pressure at the Earth’s center has no relationship to what the gravitational force is there. For the water pressure there would be due to the water above just as the atmospheric pressure at the Earth’s surface is due to the atmosphere above the surface.
Have a good day, Jerry
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Herb Rose
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Hi Jerry,
ICE NINE is a story by Kurt Vonnegut. VOWG’s comment has nothing to do with what you are babbling about.
Herb
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Herb,
Did you notice: that while I addressed my comment to VOWG. that I identified specifically what I was babbling about? Did you even read it.
Have a good day, Jerry
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Herb Rose
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Hi Jerry,
Yes I read your comments. Gravity is a radiated attractive force like magnetism. The force does not remain independent to each object but add together to form a larger unit. Gravity is not zero at the center of the Earth.
Herb
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Tom O
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Interesting statements. Let me know when you prove them to be correct – physically, not mathematically. Also, consider that the attractive force is in all directions and at the center, by definition, there would be equal amounts of mass in all directions. Gravity still exists, but does the force applied on the object at the center actually have a value greater than zero?
Herb Rose
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Hi Tom,
First gravity is not a force produced by matter but with the energy associated with the matter. Matter produces the electric force and inertia while energy produces gravity/magnetism and motion.
The proof can be found in binary asteroids. Using Newton’s formula for gravity. F=M1M2/d^2, the observed velocity, masses, and distance do not compute. According to Newton asteroids cannot orbit other asteroids.
There is a difference between an internal force and a radiated force, so the pressure at the center of the Earth consists of the internal force not the radiated force.. (Gravity is the radiation of the compression force of energy holding the nucleus together. (there is no strong nuclear force).)
With magnets as two opposite poles approach each other internal force is converted to radiated force. (Picture the magnetic flux lines around the magnets. As they approach the lines combine forming a new magnet with a North Pole at one magnet and the South Pole at the other magnet. When this happens the magnetic flux lines (internal force) between the magnets decrease and become radiated force lines.)
With the matter/electric force the opposite occurs. As a proton and an electron approach each other the radiated electric force (fields) decrease as the internal force increases becoming a neutron molecule.
The opposite occurs when similar poles/charges approach each other.
The masses of the sun, planets, and the moon were established using Newton’s formula Msun = GVplanet^2/d and are ridiculous. The density of the moon and Mars according to the observed samples do not match the calculated densities. How were the masses of Mercury, Venus, and Mars (before its moons were discovered) calculated?
Why is there a high tide on the side of the Earth opposite the moon? All the mass, of both objects, are pulling that water towards the center of the Earth. (The contention that it is due to a difference between the average vector (no such thing) and the water is pure gobbledygook.) It is due to the radiated attractive force from the moon and Earth combining and the water rising equalizing with that combined force.
The action of the “force of gravity” is so aberrant from the behavior of other forces that it screams that it is wrong, just as the graph of the temperatures at different altitudes are so contradictory to the flow of energy means that the thermometer is inaccurate in a gas.
Herb
Jerry Krause
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Hi Tom O,
“Gravity still exists, but does the force applied on the object at the center actually have a value greater than zero?” I believe I understand your point; however the definition of gravity I use is that gravity is the attractive force between the centers of mass of both bodies. Now as I attempt to explain the result of Newton’s equation I see that the force becomes undefined as the denominator becomes zero when the centers of mass of both bodies are the same.
I am uncomfortable with this consideration I have invented so I qualify it. For one body to be inside another body; this another body must be a fluid. So, in the case of the astronaut diving in a ‘solid’ body, in the ocean, a fluid, the situation becomes a three-body mathematical problem which I do not claim to have the ability to analyze. For there are there are three variables, the two masses of the fluid and the distance between them and the mass of the solid body which has no influence on its rate of fall. The reason of my analysis. Clearly this problem is beyond my chemical experiences and knowledge.
Have a good day, Jerry
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James McGinn
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Douglas Helm:
Natural water ice, for perspective, forms with a hexagonal structure.
James McGinn:
Hexagonal ice is 100% bullshit.
This silly notion was introduced back in the 1920’s by a couple of British clowns named Bernal and Fowler. They created models that were aesthetically attractive but otherwise meaningless.
Our current theory on water is, possibly, the most misconscrued theory in all of science.
James McGinn / Genius
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